A Treatise on Government | Page 8

for whatsoever is
employed on one subject only, brings that one to much greater perfection than when
employed on many; and yet among the barbarians, a female and a slave are upon a level
in the community, the reason for which is, that amongst them there are none qualified by
nature to govern, therefore their society can be nothing but between slaves of different
sexes. For which reason the poets say, it is proper for the Greeks to govern the barbarians,
as if a barbarian and a slave were by nature one. Now of these two societies the domestic
is the first, and Hesiod is right when he says, "First a house, then a wife, then an ox for
the plough," for the poor man has always an ox before a household slave. That society
then which nature has established for daily support is the domestic, and those who
compose it are called by Charondas homosipuoi, and by Epimenides the Cretan
_homokapnoi_; but the society of many families, which was first instituted for their
lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most naturally composed of
the descendants of one family, whom some persons call homogalaktes, the children and
the children's children thereof: for which reason cities were originally governed by kings,
as the barbarian states now are, which are composed of those who had before submitted
to kingly government; for every family is governed by the elder, as are the branches
thereof, on account of their relationship thereunto, which is what Homer says, "Each one
ruled his wife and child;" and in this scattered manner they formerly lived. And the
opinion which universally prevails, that the gods themselves are subject to kingly
government, arises from hence, that all men formerly were, and many are so now; and as

they imagined themselves to be made in the likeness of the gods, so they supposed their
manner of life must needs be the same. And when many villages so entirely join
themselves together as in every respect to form but one society, that society is a city, and
contains in itself, if I may so speak, the end and perfection of government: first founded
that we might live, but continued that we may live happily. For which reason every city
must be allowed to be the work of nature, if we admit that the original society between
male and female is; for to this as their end all subordinate societies tend, and the end of
everything is the nature of it. For what every being is in its most perfect state, that
certainly is the nature of that being, whether it be a man, a horse, or a house: besides,
whatsoever produces the final cause and the end which we [1253a] desire, must be best;
but a government complete in itself is that final cause and what is best. Hence it is
evident that a city is a natural production, and that man is naturally a political animal, and
that whosoever is naturally and not accidentally unfit for society, must be either inferior
or superior to man: thus the man in Homer, who is reviled for being "without society,
without law, without family." Such a one must naturally be of a quarrelsome disposition,
and as solitary as the birds. The gift of speech also evidently proves that man is a more
social animal than the bees, or any of the herding cattle: for nature, as we say, does
nothing in vain, and man is the only animal who enjoys it. Voice indeed, as being the
token of pleasure and pain, is imparted to others also, and thus much their nature is
capable of, to perceive pleasure and pain, and to impart these sensations to others; but it
is by speech that we are enabled to express what is useful for us, and what is hurtful, and
of course what is just and what is unjust: for in this particular man differs from other
animals, that he alone has a perception of good and evil, of just and unjust, and it is a
participation of these common sentiments which forms a family and a city. Besides, the
notion of a city naturally precedes that of a family or an individual, for the whole must
necessarily be prior to the parts, for if you take away the whole man, you cannot say a
foot or a hand remains, unless by equivocation, as supposing a hand of stone to be made,
but that would only be a dead one; but everything is understood to be this or that by its
energic qualities and powers, so that when these no longer remain, neither can that be
said to be the same, but something of the same name. That a city then precedes an